Chapter 504: Chapter 504

A few of the masters who had been fiercely traversing the battlefield witnessed it.

The sight of the Murong Sect’s Grand Elder’s shattered head lying at the feet of the young man who had suddenly appeared from the sky.

It was an incomprehensible scene. At this moment, it was as mysterious as the near-complete conquest of the southeastern and western flanks of Ipwang Fortress by the absolute masters of the Thirteen Celestial Lords.

Another supreme master had emerged.

The atmosphere in all directions trembled violently.

It was the ripple of energy. The major sects encircling Ipwang Fortress, as well as the fortress’s own martial artists under the Divine Sword Brigade, all simultaneously transmitted messages across the battlefield.

The inner force masters used the most definitive means to announce the emergence of an enormous variable—to their superiors, subordinates, comrades, or even their mentors, disciples, and fellow martial siblings.

— A purple-clad master has appeared 30 zhang ahead of the main gate!

— Beoncheon-no is dead! Do not wait for orders!

— What the hell... No one mentioned a purple-robed master was coming!

— Hey! This isn't what we agreed on! We’re mercenaries! Our lives matter more than our blade wages!

— I can’t even begin to understand this technique...!

It was now the grandest fortress in the martial world, holding ninety-nine pavilions of varying sizes.

Fighting in such a vast place meant that even the most perceptive inner force masters had limits in grasping the full battlefield.

That was why Sambok, a blue-robed warrior of the Myungryu Brigade, stood at the corner of the fortress wall.

The far right corner of the main gate.

It was the point where the two walls extending south and east met in a vertical fortress wall.

From this vantage point, the young warrior Sambok could ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) observe both sides of the battle. He kept his heels firmly pressed to the ground in the Phantom Wing Step stance, ready to retreat at a moment’s notice.

He was one of the most talented late-generation warriors in the Myungryu Brigade, possessing an unusually broad field of vision. His ability to perform on stage like a street performer made him a natural spy, frequently sent on intelligence missions.

In a large-scale battle , his role was to assess the battlefield.

Green Forest Army...!

Sambok’s sharp gaze locked onto the main gate.

Those bandits, who wielded horses like weapons, had brought nearly all of their elite warriors.

A force nearly equal to one of the Thirteen Celestial Lords. Even without them, the Murong Sect and Yeo Ryeong’s hired mercenaries were already a massive threat.

If they ignored the newly appeared Jeong Yeon-shin and charged straight ahead, the signboard of Ipwang Fortress could truly be shattered.

And it wasn’t the only one.

The main gate alone wasn’t the problem. Turning his head to the left, Sambok narrowed his eyes.

Beneath the sloping eaves of a distant pavilion’s roof, glimpses of a woman with long, slick black hair could be seen.

Her steps swayed drunkenly, yet her presence was utterly silent.

Every time the fortress warriors rushed toward her, their legs shattered, or invisible forces pierced their abdomens. They collapsed soundlessly.

It was as if the very air around her long legs swallowed all sound.

The Dreaming Moon Lord.

From time to time, she pressed the mouth of a slanted wine bottle against her lips, humming a disorderly tune.

Her movements were like a drunkard out for a stroll, yet not a single person could stop her.

She was, quite literally, unmatched.

She truly has glimpsed the ultimate truth of the Unrestrained Path...!

Sambok clenched his fists.

Ipwang Fortress’s eastern flank had been met with an unfathomable technique.

Naturally, morale would plummet. The few warriors within the fortress capable of facing such supreme masters were already locked in deadly duels against the elite leaders of the Thirteen Celestial Lords.

The Green Forest Army's arrival was already a disaster in itself, and it wasn't something that the acting leader of the Divine Sword Brigade could handle alone.

A figure suddenly burst forth from within the fortress.

An overwhelmingly dominant energy. It was Ma Jin, the Lord of the Horse Clan.

He had abandoned his position overseeing the formations and his clan’s warriors, choosing instead to personally intervene. He was charging straight toward the Dreaming Moon Lord, despite having no chance of victory.

Similar desperate struggles were unfolding throughout the fortress.

The outnumbered fortress warriors were at a disadvantage, and their means of countering the supreme masters lay deep within the fortress.

But if the enemy completely defiled the interior of Ipwang Fortress...

The honor of the 荒 (Huang) character, symbolizing desolation, would be tarnished.

That character’s significance had served as a shield for the common people. It was the very reason the enemy’s initial focus was to either defile the fortress’s heart or bring down its signboard.

Sambok shattered the skull of an approaching mercenary with an iron-fisted punch from his Shihwa Infinite Fist technique.

Then, he drew every last ounce of his inner force up to his throat.

A massive shift was needed.

Simultaneously, the resonant echo of Six Harmonies Transmission reverberated between the fortress walls and beyond, spreading in all directions.

In a battlefield where silence was an unspoken rule among masters, this act shattered that unspoken taboo.

At that moment, Sambok witnessed it.

The Dreaming Moon Lord, who had been swaying her limbs aimlessly, paused mid-step.

A young man, his violet robes flowing behind him, stepped onto the battlefield.

Two swords rested at his waist.

Jeong Yeon-shin casually scuffed his leather shoes against the ruined ground.

He had merely hastened the inevitable demise of an old man who was already doomed.

Shattered fragments of bone and flesh crunched beneath his feet. A fitting funeral.

Silently, he scanned his surroundings. He extended his senses, taking in the battlefield that stretched across the entire fortress, memorizing every detail.

A vast road lay before him. A path leading directly to his cradle.

This was the very road where he had once marched alongside Hyeon Won-chang to conquer Ipwang City. It could be said that their journey into the martial world had begun right here.

Naturally, to Jeong Yeon-shin, this was now the most familiar road in the world.

Every time he completed a mission and returned, he had no choice but to pass through it.

He remembered which stalls had once sold sweets, trinkets, and ornaments.

He knew exactly where the road bent and curved ever so slightly. It had once held an air of serene tranquility.

Now, it was different.

A thick stench of blood and iron filled the air.

A scent that should not exist here.

It was the smell of rapid, high-level martial arts exchanges and the wounds they inflicted.

The deeply cratered ground, the cacophony of deafening explosions, the chaotic energy surges in all directions, the sight of commoners completely gone from the area—none of it belonged here.

A girl’s whisper reached his ears.

Jeong Yeon-shin turned.

At this moment, he locked eyes with the most reliable senior he knew.

Ak Su-rim of Ipwang Fortress silently observed Jeong Yeon-shin’s entire body with pitch-black eyes. Rather than being impressed by his extraordinary movement techniques, she seemed more focused on his physical condition.

That alone gave Jeong Yeon-shin a feeling of warmth, like drifting through the clouds. For some reason, it lifted his spirits.

It was as if the immense energy he had exhausted by mimicking the swordplay of the Supreme Outlaw Sword after merging with the Celestial Wood had been restored.

He asked in a low voice.

“Were you planning to face them alone?”

“You already know, don’t you? There are never many people at the fortress.”

Ak Su-rim spoke in a somewhat plain tone.

It was very different from her usual self. Her expression was devoid of its usual playfulness.

Standing with a single spear in hand, her back turned against the walls of Ipwang Fortress, there was a quiet solitude about her—one that veteran martial artists who had traversed the world multiple times often carried.

Meanwhile, behind Jeong Yeon-shin, the sound of numerous horses rapidly approached. The vibrations they carried were so immense that they made his ears ring.

“Who were those people?”

Ak Su-rim adjusted her grip on her spear shaft and asked.

She seemed to have caught a glimpse of the vague silhouettes that had surged and disappeared alongside Jeong Yeon-shin earlier. Even among absolute masters, it was difficult to completely perceive one another’s movements.

Her mastery of the Dark Second Stage Eye Technique had improved beyond what it had been in the past, regardless of her age.

“They are temporary allies lending me their aid.”

With that reply, Jeong Yeon-shin slowly turned back.

A horde of cavalry had already surged into view.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

His gaze was drawn to the waist of the man leading the charge atop a massive warhorse.

Two round objects dangled from his belt, their presence unpleasant for some reason. The ochre-hued mist made it difficult to clearly make out what they were, which only added to the unease.

A unique martial art.

‘Cavalry of the Green Forest.’

A massive faction that had stolen a portion of the supreme martial arts of the northern Jianghu, a realm often called a separate world, and had instantly risen to the ranks of the Thirteen Heavens.

They had undoubtedly seen Jeong Yeon-shin, yet they did not halt their charge. Instead, their momentum only grew, sending waves of dust surging like ocean tides and intensifying the vibrations.

It felt as if an earthquake were approaching. With each strike of the hooves against the ground, the energy waves of the master riders rippled outward in waves.

The leader of Cavalry of the Green Forest, riding at the forefront, moved his lips faintly. His demeanor was that of a learned scholar, exuding a sense of composed etiquette.

‘I offer you my respects.’

Cavalry martial arts. Grip of Wei, Overlooking the World.

The sound of galloping hooves transformed into the roar of thunder.

The ground fractured and shifted. The immense pressure layered upon itself, continuously forming a semi-transparent force field.

It was akin to a colossal fortress pressing forward, using the solid formation of Qi Veil as an overwhelming offensive weapon. And at the very forefront, a man began to raise a massive axe.

Taebaek Bu-wang, Iron Will Emperor.

It was as if an entire stronghold was charging forward. No single person could withstand such an assault alone.

Meanwhile, Jeong Yeon-shin required a moment of controlled breathing due to the internal energy expenditure from his transcendent sword strike.

The cavalry was now within striking distance.

Jeong Yeon-shin and the leader of Cavalry of the Green Forest locked gazes, both maintaining a calm composure. At the same moment, Jeong Yeon-shin’s hand descended, gripping the hilt of Songmun High Sword.

Ak Su-rim spun gracefully, her long sleeves fluttering like a painting, and hurled her spear.

In an instant, the space within her grip distorted, and the elongated silver blade erupted outward in an explosive wave.

The silver spear shot forward like lightning, striking directly into the dense Qi Veil of the cavalry charge.

For a brief moment, flames erupted violently from the impact.

Ak Su-rim’s spear carved through the air with a harsh grinding sound, piercing through the torsos of five elite cavalrymen in a single motion before vanishing.

At the same time, if only by the slightest margin—

The charge of Cavalry of the Green Forest had been slowed. It would not be wrong to say that the force of an oncoming calamity had been momentarily diminished.

Even so, the charge of Grip of Wei, Overlooking the World pressed forward like a storm, closing in with relentless force. But by then, standing in their path was Jeong Yeon-shin, having already drawn Songmun High Sword.

He inhaled deeply, fully absorbing the essence of Light Wheel Qi.

The force of his movement sank into the ground. In an instant, the rotating light wheel in his heart emitted a deafening hum as it spun with immense intensity.

Simultaneously, within his mind, the images of So Cheonmujuk, Dark Heaven Emperor, and Songmun High Sword intertwined in radiant brilliance.

In that single moment—

The earth beneath the charging cavalry shattered apart and surged upward.

The galloping warhorses, their powerful strides forcibly interrupted, had their legs bent upwards as if yanked by some unseen force. But even that was not enough—the ground itself swelled like a tidal wave, lifting all five hundred riders and their mounts into the air.

It was a spectacle akin to witnessing an unparalleled Grandmaster-level sorcery martial art.

The warhorses, their eyes filled with murderous intent, continued to glare at Jeong Yeon-shin, exhaling thick snorts—until their fear finally overtook them.

Mid-charge, Cavalry of the Green Forest's warriors were suddenly hurled into the sky at a steep angle. The very hooves that had trampled upon the Gongson Family, the Shandong Ak Family, and the Namgung Family now struck at empty air in vain.

Of them, only a handful, including the leader, managed to balance themselves atop their mounts by stepping onto the stirrups.

Even then, for the first time, faint traces of alarm flickered in their previously indifferent eyes.

Like their subordinates, who now drifted helplessly in midair.

The aged, battle-worn Songmun High Sword rose upward.

Following the downward swing of Jeong Yeon-shin’s iron sword, a strange pulling force surged forth.

A power derived from the principle of Taiji, this force gathered the chaotic winds raging in all directions into a singular vortex—directly toward one of Cavalry of the Green Forest’s masters and his axe.

The axe handle landed naturally in Jeong Yeon-shin’s grip, his hand pulsing with the steady thrum of a heartbeat.

The resonance of Sword Song spread outward, its vibration rippling toward the sky like a thick mist.

All five hundred warhorses and riders exploded into a storm of blood, their bodies crashing to the earth in dull, resounding impacts, as if the echoes of the Sword Song had taken physical form.

The countless surging veins of energy that had pulsed through their bodies vanished one by one.

It was destruction on the verge of annihilation.

The movements of the southern battlefield’s warriors halted in unison.

For a moment, Jeong Yeon-shin felt the axe in his hand crumble into dust, its blade and head disintegrating into nothing—but even that could not break the profound silence suffusing the battlefield.

Two elite warriors from Cavalry of the Green Forest abandoned their warhorses mid-air and landed.

Clad in noble silver armor, they were a middle-aged man and woman, wielding an axe and a spear, respectively. Their faces were expressionless, as if crafted from featureless white porcelain.

Meanwhile, the leader, who had landed intact upon his mount, stood with his back turned to Jeong Yeon-shin and Ak Su-rim.

A lone young man, draped in a deep violet long robe, slowly parted his lips.

Sheathing Songmun High Sword, he casually dropped the now handleless axe to the ground.

His voice surged with power.

Jeong Yeon-shin’s voice spread across the battlefield like an unshakable echo.